More than 100 aircraft are set to take off together from Vancouver July 17 in a record-breaking voyage to commemorate 100 years of flight in Canada.
The smaller, independently owned aircraft will depart from Boundary Bay Airport and touch down at 30 airports across the nation before landing at Baddeck, N.S., on July 28.
“We’ve been planning this for well over a year,” said pilot Anthony Nalli.
“When you have 250 to 300 people converging on any one small airport, there’s going to be a lot of logistical things,” he said. “Everything from washrooms to bottles of water and to food.”
Other preparations included making sure the smaller airports have enough aviation fuel to power all the aircraft, and making sure air traffic control knows that more than 100 planes will be showing up on their radar at once.
All the planning is going toward something Canadians may remember for a long time.
“I saw the 100th anniversary of flight in the United States pass with little notice,” said John Lovelace, Cross Canada Century Flight co-ordinator. “Now that it’s our turn in Canada, we wanted to do something significant on a national level.”
